Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia

Latest release

Quarterly statistics on mineral and petroleum exploration expenditure by private organisations in Australia

Reference period
September 2023
Released
4/12/2023
  • Next Release 4/03/2024
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, December 2023
  • Next Release 4/06/2024
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, March 2024
  • Next Release 2/09/2024
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, June 2024
  • View all releases

Key statistics

  • Mineral exploration expenditure rose by 1.7%
  • Petroleum exploration expenditure rose by 34.2%
  Sep Qtr 23Jun Qtr 23 to Sep Qtr 23Sep Qtr 22 to Sep Qtr 23
  $m% change% change
Seasonally adjusted   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure1,0791.75.2
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure32234.244.6
     
Trend   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure1,0731.64.6
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure29813.430.9

Mineral exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 1.7% ($18.0m) to $1,078.5m

  • Trend rise of 1.6% ($17.3m) to $1,073.3m

Mineral exploration, by deposit type, original series

  • Rise of 6.1% ($67.0m) to $1157.0m 
  • New deposits rose 11.6% ($38.1m) to $367.6m
  • Existing deposits rose 3.8% ($28.8m) to $789.4m

Mineral exploration, by mineral type, original series

  • Gold recorded the largest rise (up 7.7%, $23.8m) to $334.3m
  • Mineral Sands recorded the largest fall (down 13.3%, $2.6m) to $17.0m

(a) Selected Base Metals contains Copper, Silver, Lead & Zinc, and Nickel & Cobalt

(b) All Others contains Mineral Sands, Uranium, Diamonds and Other Minerals

Metres drilled, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 4.5% (125.3km) to 2,630.6km
  • Trend fall of 2.5% (67.7km) to 2,668.3km

Metres drilled, original series

  • Fall of 4.1% (121.3km) to 2,813.4km
  • Existing deposits fell 5.9% (124.5km) to 1,991.7km
  • New deposits rose 0.4% (3.2km) to 821.7km

Petroleum exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 34.2% ($82.0m) to $321.9m
  • Trend rise of 13.4% ($35.2m) to $298.0m

Onshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 13.7% ($21.2m) to $175.8m
  • Trend rise of 7.5% ($11.9m) to $170.9m

Offshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 71.3% ($60.8m) to $146.1m
  • Trend rise of 20.9% ($21.7m) to $125.6m

  

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

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Mineral Exploration - Quarterly mineral exploration expenditure and metres drilled

Petroleum Exploration - Quarterly petroleum expenditure

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Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8412.0.

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